


vetiver

by desvelo



Category: VALORANT (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desvelo/pseuds/desvelo
Summary: It's hard to know what to do, it's hard to know.
Relationships: Phoenix/Sova (VALORANT), Phoenix/Yoru
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	1. one

On days like these, when the thin air of Venice is shot through with light, Phoenix can see him training in the courtyard below. When he works there’s something about the way he moves, like he’s slipping between the rays, that makes it hard to look away. On this balcony Phoenix is sat alone by the side of the schoolyard, picking dandelions in the grass, hoping their petals will divine his beloved. How boyish! How embarrassing it is to be a boy again. If Yoru knew he was watching he would pelt him with rocks. 

They call it puppy love, and he hopes that the latter half is true. You’d think a man like Phoenix would have loved enough to know for sure. But he’s inexperienced, he’s pining, and on evenings like these, when it’s too dusky to tell what the stars want for him, his tender heart brings him to Yoru’s door. 

On nights like these, when the wind is too loud for him to cry out, Phoenix would like to believe there’s nothing between them. Their skin is molten in his bed. Phoenix can feel on his lips the linger of Yoru’s ear, his cheekbone, the corner of his jaw where his hair goes from black to seethrough blond. He can feel his need choke the room of light. But in the dark Phoenix can’t see his chest is a gaping wound and Yoru is plate-armored. Yoru’s not in pain when he slams his hips into Phoenix, greedy greedy greedy, jabs his nails into his shoulder and his sides. There are no kisses for Yoru to recall. 

In the hallway in his dirty clothes Phoenix can see the courtyard again. On mornings like these, when the rising sun bloodies the waters, he’s the loser, last back to shore, first torn apart.


	2. two

These are the wet weeks, when in between the clouds the air hangs heavy with haze, the doors to the balcony glazed over with dew. Every time it rains it smells like incense - eucalyptus, citrus and woody, clean at the top of his nose. There’s a warmth to the air; when it gets like this, Sage likes to light candles, make it here a home for them. They’re little beacons of mercy. 

Sova’s door is open. So is the window. The rain makes pockmarks on the clean white sheets and on the papers on his desk. The candle there blinks gold. Sova’s at the windowsill, looking out into the thick white air. There’s a note on his breath. It’s in an old language. 

The window’s wide enough for the two of them. Inside his room it smells like cypress and honey, amber dripping down to moss, something ancient and alive brought in on the breeze. Mist drapes Phoenix’s face, wind tremolo against him. He can understand the need to sing. 

Their kiss is framed by white wood, by clinging ivy, by stucco, by mountains of seafoam clouds. Sova’s breath is saffron and black pepper, his hair jasmine, his halo brought up from the green earth below. They’re sheltered by the plum blossom branches of their grotto. To lie together in a bower: this is what it means to fall in love.


	3. three

There’s something about the way these isles hang ornamented in the air, a slow and gentle movement that reminds him that they’re far above the ocean. When he knocks on Yoru’s door, though, their rocking is sickening, the heaves of a capsizing ship, because Phoenix had never denied him, and what a denial this was, to come to him for the last time. Venice should fall back into the ground. 

When the door opens, when Phoenix steps inside, already there are half-gloved hands pressed under his shirt. Yoru’s taken his knock as an invitation and he’s so close, up together against the wall. His breath is in his ear and on it is tobacco, not an ashy smoke but one of juniper, cinnamon, vanilla. It’s intoxicating. The rolling of the ground beneath him fades back into a sway. And although last time was the last time... 

It’s like he knows. Yoru blooms sweet kisses along his neck in a way he never had. It’s hard not to fall for him again when soft lips over and over meet that crook by his shoulder where skin and muscle and nerves are all the same. The tongue in his mouth is overpowering cedarwood and sweet charcoal. The familiarity of that figure as it explores him like the first time - it’s a comfort, it’s a bad habit, and he will succumb. 

He’s been here many times before, sticky and cold in the blank white hallway. He loves me, he loves me not, he doesn’t know.


	4. four

Everyone could tell what they did. There’s all sorts of noises, rustles, half-hidden gasps, the early morning open-and-shut of one door and then another down the hall. And there’s a feeling in the air, the way sex seeps poisonous over the threshold and takes up space beyond itself. When Phoenix stands beside the balcony it surrounds him in a cloud of salt and leather. 

It’s raining again. Sage’s candles flicker in and out of life. The dovey clouds are lit up like wildfire by the smeary half-sun. 

Every door is closed, and then one opens, Sova’s, setting mellow chamomile out into the hall. His silhouette against the glow of his room is like the Belvedere. When he closes the door behind him, when his features come into focus, Phoenix can see the disdain he carries with him. Revulsion oozes from him like bitter tar. All his carved beauty is grotesque. 

There’s nothing to be done, no explanation good enough for this frigid, haughty Sova. This is the one who could never share his home, share his bed, and yet he did, with his whole soul. The dream has passed. His heart is full of scorn. Whatever spark he saw in Phoenix has burnt out, whatever spark lit up his eyes was snuffed out in the rain. Love has made them ugly.


End file.
